Maggie Read online

  As Maggie giggled even more, she stepped forward and stumbled on the corner of the rug. She didn’t go right down, but it was enough of a trip to make Russell laugh.

  ‘Shut up, brat, it’s not funny,’ Maggie mumbled as she reached out for the banister pillar to try and get her balance. ‘It’s not funny. It’s not funny! Brat brat brat.’

  ‘OK. That is enough,’ Ruby shouted. ‘I don’t know where you’ve been, but just get yourself off to your room and to bed and we’ll talk about this in the morning. This is a step too far, even for you.’

  Johnnie touched his wife’s arm to calm her in front of Russell, but Ruby had reached the end of her tether. She was fuming.

  ‘Don’t Johnnie. I’ve had enough. If she wants to wreck her life we can’t stop her, but she’s not going to visit her troubles on the boys. I’m not having it! I’m not.’

  ‘Oh, shut up, woman … you’re such a bloody old nag.’ As Maggie giggled, she bent over and clutched at her stomach.

  ‘Bed!’ Johnnie said, his tone as angry as Ruby’s. ‘Just go. Now. You should be ashamed of yourself.’

  ‘Ashamed? Me?’ Maggie slurred as she tried to stand up straight.

  Johnnie looked at her. ‘Go to bed, Maggie, and if you’re going to be sick there’s a bucket under the sink in the bathroom.’ He didn’t berate or shout, he just said the words quietly and calmly.

  Maggie looked at him curiously for a few moments before she turned and walked clumsily up the stairs.

  Ruby moved forward to help her, but Johnnie put out his hand to stop her following. ‘No, let her go, she’s …’ When he saw Russell sitting quietly by the understairs cupboard he paused. ‘Go on, Russ. Off you go now. Maggie will be fine in the morning; she’s just upset.’

  ‘I want to listen,’ he whined.

  ‘There’s nothing to listen to; now go,’ Johnnie said.

  He waited until he heard their son’s bedroom door click shut before he looked at Ruby and nodded in the direction of the kitchen. They went through together, and Johnnie pulled the door closed behind him.

  ‘It’s time we stopped pussy footing around her. Little madam. From now on we’re going to stand firm and together,’ Johnnie said. ‘She’s going back to Melton to the vicarage. She might take notice of the Hobarts; it’ll be for her own good. We need to go to Melton as soon as possible, talk to the Hobarts. And we can find out about the Blythes at the same time.’

  ‘But it’s not her fault …’

  ‘Well, of course I know that, but we can’t carry on like this. Sixteen years old and coming home drunk? And, even worse, we don’t know where she’s been or who she’s been with, or even how she got home at this time in the morning. This is going to stop, and if we have to lock her up and stand guard then that’s what we’ll do.’

  ‘Well, don’t say I didn’t warn you, Johnnie Riordan. If she goes, I go. I’ll sell up and go back to Melton with her.’

  ‘No, you won’t. You’re too sensible to wreck this family. Now, let’s get back to bed.’

  ‘I knew this would happen.’ Ruby said. ‘Oh God, I hope she’s not doing anything stupid. Please tell me she’s not. She must have heard you talking about sending her to Melton.’

  Johnnie Riordan pulled his wife into his arms and held her tight to calm her. ‘Stop for a minute and let’s think about this. Chances are she’s actually gone back to Melton of her own accord. Underneath all the nonsense she’s a sensible girl. She’ll be OK; she’s just making a point. Now, you go round to the hotel and check she’s not gone there, and I’ll phone the Blythes. I’ll bet she’s gone looking for that boy again. He’s been a bit of a constant since she had to leave there, her only link to the place.’

  ‘No, it’s all over, she lost interest in him. She told Gracie she had no one, no friends … why didn’t we see this coming?’

  ‘Well, just to be sure, I’ll phone them,’ Johnnie said, ‘and for the moment let’s keep this to ourselves, eh? There have been enough shenanigans in this family already.’

  Ruby Riordan was terrified. She had done everything she could to make Maggie feel welcome, to make her an integral part of the family, but now it seemed she had made things worse instead of better.

  Maggie had run away. Ruby could sense it, but she just didn’t know where she had run to.

  Despite her fears, she could still easily understand how the girl felt, how traumatic it was to have had her life turned upside down and her whole identity stripped off her, but it still hurt Ruby, who was doing her best by her birth daughter. Doing her best was all she’d ever done, but Maggie just didn’t seem able to forgive them all for getting it wrong. There had been an uneasy truce for a while, but the problems were still there, and the unhappy teenager was taking her frustrations out on everyone.

  ‘I spoke to the boy’s mother,’ Johnnie said when he came back into the kitchen. ‘She said Andy is in London working with his father. She’s going to ring Andy and ask, but she says Andy hasn’t mentioned Maggie since she left.’

  ‘I’m not surprised. I always thought it was all one-sided. That boy was too old for his age for Maggie; she spent half her time sitting around waiting for him to phone, and he rarely did,’ Ruby said. ‘A nice enough boy, but completely under his father’s thumb.’

  ‘That’s what I think.’ Johnnie nodded. ‘When I asked Mrs Hobart, the general gossip was that there’s something wrong about the father, that he’s a bully to his wife and Andy … The housekeeper said they’re all scared of him.’

  ‘But that’s not the boy’s fault.’

  ‘That Andy’s a spoilt brat, though; he reminds me of someone I used to know back in Walthamstow. He’s just hanging on Daddy’s coat-tails and waiting for his inheritance – if there is an inheritance. More gossip is that he’s mortgaged up to the hilt and not really worth a bean. Fur coat and no knickers, if you ask me.’

  ‘That’s not fair, Johnnie, that’s just the village gossips. She may be the vicar’s wife, but Mrs Hobart is one of the worst … But it doesn’t matter, anyway. If Andy’s with his father in London, then Maggie won’t be with him.’

  ‘Probably not, but …’ Johnnie’s voice faded as he thought about the worst scenarios. ‘We need to talk to everyone she may have spoken to. Gracie! Gracie might know something.’

  ‘I doubt it. She’d have told me. Let’s face it, we’ve not done right by her, have we? We don’t know where she’s been going or who she’s been seeing … Oh God, Johnnie, what are we going to do?’

  ‘Not panic is the first thing. Then you should talk to Gracie; she might have confided in her,’ Johnnie said.

  ‘Maybe she said something to Jeanette … I’m going to look again.’

  With that she rushed around, checking every single space over and over again and searching Maggie’s room for clues. She wondered if Maggie had really gone on the spur of the moment or if she had planned it and the night out was her final defiance.

  As she searched, her mind was back to 1945, when she herself had run away. Ruby could still clearly remember the planning and subterfuge she had to go through beforehand: the lying to her family, the nonchalant way she had had to behave despite her inner turmoil, all so she didn’t raise the suspicions of her mother and brothers. And then the final moment of getting out of the house and running as fast as she could until she was out of sight. No one had noticed a thing, the same as she and Johnnie hadn’t.

  She could also still remember how she’d felt sitting quiet and scared in her seat on the train, waiting to get caught but also trying to imagine what her future would hold if she did get away.

  When she’d made the decision to run away from the family home in Walthamstow and go back to the Wheatons in Melton, she hadn’t known what sort of welcome she’d get in her condition. Babs and George Wheaton had been good to her in the five years she’d been with them during her evacuation, but then she’d had to go back to Walthamstow to her family: she hadn’t wanted to go back and the Wheatons hadn’t wanted her t
o go, but there had been no choice, especially after her brother had been to visit and demanded that she return. Going back had been enough of a nightmare for her, but then she’d met Johnnie Riordan and accidentally become pregnant, leaving her with no alternative but to run.

  With her brain in overdrive, she suddenly had a thought. She ran out on to the landing and shouted over the banisters. ‘Johnnie, Johnnie, you don’t think she’s pregnant, do you? She spent time with that Andy, and she was besotted with him. Maybe she had to run …’

  ‘I doubt it. She’s not that daft – she’s a difficult little mare, but she’s not silly, and—’ Johnnie said.

  Before he could finish the sentence, Ruby erupted, ‘Silly? You’re saying I was silly? Me? So it was nothing to do with you, then, Johnnie Riordan? It was me being silly that got us into this mess? I got pregnant all by myself, did I?’ Her anger was boiling over as she glared at her husband; she couldn’t believe what he’d just said.

  ‘Oh, come on, Rubes, you have to stop this … You’re launching yourself off into the deep end every five minutes. You know that isn’t what I meant at all. It never even entered my head, so cut it out! You’re going to drive yourself round the bend if you don’t calm down …’

  She took a deep breath. She knew he was right and that she was becoming increasingly erratic, but she couldn’t stop the terrible thoughts she was having about Maggie.

  Her daughter. Their daughter.

  She sat down on the top stair, and once she burst into tears she just couldn’t stop. She cried for Maggie, she cried for herself, and she cried for her family. She cried until there were no tears left, and then she phoned Gracie, the only person who would understand. ‘She’s never coming back! She’s taken the fairy …’ she said to Gracie.

  ‘I’ll be straight round.’

  Nineteen

  As the overcrowded train from Southend pulled into Liverpool Street Station in London, Maggie looked again at the address on the piece of paper she had pulled out of her pocket. She had already looked at it a dozen times and memorized it, but she needed to check it just once more, along with the directions she would need to find her way to the Blythe offices. She’d been there before but only with Andy, and she was finding the thought of getting across London on her own far more daunting than she’d originally anticipated.

  ‘You can find your own way to the offices, can’t you?’ Andy had asked when they’d made the final arrangements. ‘Only, Dad says I’ve got to let you find your own feet. He doesn’t want me to meet you. He says I’m in danger of looking like your nursemaid.’

  ‘Of course I can find my bloody way! I’m not stupid. I’ve done it before,’ she’d answered sharply with a confidence she didn’t feel. Less than a year before, Maggie Wheaton had been living a sheltered life in a small village, so the thought of finding her own way across London on the underground trains terrified her, but she wasn’t going to admit it.

  ‘Just go into reception and ask for me, and I’ll show you up to your room. We’ve saved the best one for you – it’s on the floor below where we live in the penthouse and above the studio and our office. Oh, Maggie, we’re going to have such fun in London, especially after that bloody awful village. And Dad reckons he can make you a star, especially if you do exactly as he tells you. He knows these things, does Dad.’

  Andy’s enthusiasm was catching, and she couldn’t help but get caught up in it. He seemed to really want her with him in London, and after months of feeling isolated and unhappy she was raring to go.

  Maggie waited in her seat until the carriage load of commuters had emptied on to the platform before gathering up her belongings. When she eventually stood up and retrieved her case from the rack above, she hesitated for a moment before stepping out on to the platform herself. Her stomach was rumbling with hunger after creeping out of the house with no breakfast, and she felt quite nauseous with nervousness, but she forced herself forward in the direction of the entrance to the underground, clutching the precious cream leather suitcase that had belonged to her mother.

  Whenever they’d gone on holiday, Babs Wheaton had always taken the same suitcase for her own things. This time it was packed with a selection of Maggie’s essentials; she’d picked the most grown-up clothes in her wardrobe, a few mementoes of her previous life in Melton and the bare minimum of cosmetics and toiletries. Other than that she just had her handbag, which contained her purse and a few pieces of her mother’s jewellery and, carefully wrapped in a piece of tissue paper, the fairy from the Christmas tree that she’d snatched at the last minute.

  Everything else was back in her bedroom at Ruby and Johnnie’s house, the house that had never been, and never would be, her home. The house she never wanted to go back to. She was off to start a new life and didn’t need any of the things that would remind her of the old one.

  Maggie successfully made her across London to Oxford Street and then followed Andy’s precise instructions to the offices. Just before the entrance she stopped and straightened her coat, patted her hair and licked her lips, a tip she’d picked up from a magazine. Then she swung the door open, took a deep breath and did her best to look mature and confident. ‘Good morning! I’m Maggie Wheaton. Andy Blythe is expecting me …’

  The immaculately turned out young woman behind the reception desk at the agency smiled. ‘I’ll tell him you’re here. There’s someone auditioning at the moment, but they won’t be long. Take a seat.’

  Maggie sat down on the only empty chair in the room and tucked her case under her legs, which she crossed at the ankles, another tip she’d picked up from the same magazine article, and then looked around curiously at the assorted group sitting around her. Next to her on one side was a middle-aged man who looked so ordinary that she wondered what he could possibly be auditioning for, and on the other was a young man with very tight trousers, a stringy tie and a guitar on a strap. Maggie just knew he was going to go in and sing a Cliff Richard song, same as she knew the other young man with what looked like a rather large picnic basket was probably a magician. She wondered if he had rabbits in the basket and stared at it for longer than was polite.

  As she looked around and made up assorted scenarios for everyone else, she nearly missed Jack Blythe quietly opening the door behind the desk.

  ‘Maggie. This way,’ he said, without altering his expression one iota.

  She jumped up and followed him as he went back through the door and walked ahead of her up the stairs. On the second floor he stopped and opened a door near to the stairwell. ‘This is your room; we’ll discuss the rules and conditions later. You go in and unpack, and I’ll send young Andy to see you when he’s free.’

  Jack Blythe stood back and left just enough room for Maggie to pass. Again she couldn’t help but notice what a very attractive man he was for his age. He was probably not much older than Johnnie, and he was a similar height, but his shoulders were broader, his hair was thicker and she again noticed the air of danger which he seemed to exhale as he breathed.

  ‘Thank you, Mr Blythe, for the room and everything. I’m going to work hard and do my best. I’m so grateful for this opportunity.’

  ‘Well, just you remember that when you hate me for working you so hard. You get nothing for nothing in this business, and luck is bloody well overrated. The toilet and bathroom are at the end of the hall. They’re shared, but the others are away on tour in Blackpool at the moment so it’s just you on this floor. You’ve got today and tomorrow to settle in and acclimatize, and after that you’ll belong to me, hook, line and sinker.’ He took a step towards her, slid his hand behind her and patted her on the backside. ‘By the way, there’s a fire escape out back for when the office is closed, but I don’t want any young men traipsing up and down.’

  ‘Andy’s the only young man I know,’ she said, hyper aware of his hand.

  ‘He’s got a key, but I still don’t want you distracting him from his job.’ He patted her again; she was still trying to get over the shock when, w
ithout another word, he turned and left, pulling the door closed behind him.

  Maggie looked around the cramped room which housed a single bed, a bedside table and a narrow tallboy with no hanging space for dresses. Once again she felt the flutterings of doubt started to rise in her chest; it was more basic than anything she had ever seen, and it was so very cold. She clicked the switch on the one-bar electric fire and stood in front of it as the bar started to glow red. After the comfort and warmth of the Riordan house, this little room seemed like an icebox. It wasn’t what she had expected at all.

  She waited a few minutes to make sure that Jack Blythe had gone and then tiptoed out on to the landing. She checked out the bathroom, which was cold and forbidding with a filthy toilet bowl and handbasin and bath, which all looked as if they hadn’t been used for months. The next room was the kitchen, which looked out on to the house next door. There was an aged gas stove with two rings, one of which had a kettle on top and an oven door that was too congealed to open.

  Maggie was horrified, but at the same time she wasn’t intending to spend much time there. She was hoping that, as she was Andy’s girlfriend, when she wasn’t working she’d be up in the penthouse flat.

  She went back to her room and unpacked her case. With no hanging space, she looped her dresses one on top of the other on to the solitary hook on the back of the door and then folded everything else and put it in the tallboy. All her knick-knacks and precious belongings she left in the suitcase and pushed it under the bed.

  Apart from the fairy and the transistor radio.

  She perched the fairy carefully on the bedside table, where she knew she could see it when she went to sleep and when she woke up, and put the transistor in her dressing gown pocket. It was far from luxurious in the room – in fact, it was just one step up from a tenement room – but Maggie breathed a sigh of relief as she lay back on the bed. She had made the first step to a new life, and she had a plan to keep her focused; she had already decided that when she was rich and famous she could go back to Melton and live in the old house once again, inheritance or not.